Reduced global plant respiration due to the acclimation of leaf dark respiration coupled with photosynthesis

Ren, Y., Wang, H., Harrison, S. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5687-1903, Prentice, I. C., Atkin, O. K., Smith, N. G., Mengoli, G., Stefanski, A. and Reich, P. B. (2023) Reduced global plant respiration due to the acclimation of leaf dark respiration coupled with photosynthesis. New Phytologist. ISSN 1469-8137 doi: 10.1111/nph.19355

Abstract/Summary

Leaf dark respiration (Rd) acclimates to environmental changes. However, the magnitude, controls and time scales of acclimation remain unclear and are inconsistently treated in ecosystem models. We hypothesized that Rd and Rubisco carboxylation capacity (Vcmax) at 25°C (Rd,25, Vcmax,25) are coordinated so that Rd,25 variations support Vcmax,25 at a level allowing full light use, with Vcmax,25 reflecting daytime conditions (for photosynthesis), and Rd,25/Vcmax,25 reflecting night-time conditions (for starch degradation and sucrose export). We tested this hypothesis temporally using a 5-yr warming experiment, and spatially using an extensive field-measurement data set. We compared the results to three published alternatives: Rd,25 declines linearly with daily average prior temperature; Rd at average prior night temperatures tends towards a constant value; and Rd,25/Vcmax,25 is constant. Our hypothesis accounted for more variation in observed Rd,25 over time (R2 = 0.74) and space (R2 = 0.68) than the alternatives. Night-time temperature dominated the seasonal time-course of Rd, with an apparent response time scale of c. 2 wk. Vcmax dominated the spatial patterns. Our acclimation hypothesis results in a smaller increase in global Rd in response to rising CO2 and warming than is projected by the two of three alternative hypotheses, and by current models.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/113836
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	Wiley
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